her Miss Minnie.’ Maggie smiled. ‘She didn’t really have a proper interview. Rachel spoke to Mrs Harper and she invited her for coffee, took one look at her work and gave her the job. She is a wonderful seamstress…’
‘Yes, I know. I’d love to have something made by her, but it’s so expensive…’
‘Oh, very,’ Maggie agreed and sighed. ‘Beautiful to see though…’
‘I’d better go,’ Marion said regretfully, ‘or I shall miss the bus and Ma will worry if I’m late…’ She would have loved to stop and talk to Maggie, but if she did, she would be late home and everyone would be waiting for their tea.
Marion ran to her stop and clambered on the bus as it pulled to a halt. She climbed the winding stairs to the top level and found a seat. Several passengers were sitting there, but it wasn’t as crowded as downstairs, because some people didn’t like riding in the open air, especially if it was wet or cold. That evening it was chilly but dry and Marion rather liked the feel of the wind in her face. She’d got her plain grey felt hat well pinned down on her short dark hair. Her sister Kathy had cut it for her at Marion’s request, because it had just been too much trouble when left long. Short, it curled into the nape of her neck and about her face; long it frizzed everywhere and she had to drag it back and secure it with hairpins, which never stayed put, so because she had no time to spend putting it up, she’d let Kathy chop it off. The result had brought a few tears, but at work the girls had liked it and Mrs Burrows had told her it suited her – it saved twenty minutes or more in the mornings, making it possible for her to do all she needed to and still get to work on time.
Rush Terrace, in which Marion lived with her mother, sisters and younger brothers, was a row of tall, narrow houses, all of which had long back gardens, which made them lucky, because everyone grew vegetables and some kept a few chickens. Marion knew that in other similar streets some of the back-to-back houses only had a tiny back yard, but her home had a good garden that her brothers dug and tended so they always had plenty of vegetables in season. She had two brothers at home still, her elder brother Dan having gone off more than three years previously after a violent row with his father over his treatment of their mother, and two sisters younger than herself. Their father worked on the ships and was seldom home, something they all felt relieved about, despite the shortage of money his absence caused. Dan had fought him and suffered a painful injury, but he’d gone because if he’d stayed, he might have done something he would regret. Sometimes in the past year, Maggie’s leek and potato soup had been all they had for supper, but now that she was earning, things were a little better.
Opening the back door and walking into the kitchen of her home, Marion’s heart sank. It had been one of Ma’s bad days. On her better days, she made a little effort to tidy up, do washing or ironing or make their tea, but from the look of things, she’d done nothing.
‘Where is Ma?’ Marion asked of her sister. Kathy was still at school but helped as much as she could before and after school hours. Marion could see that she’d given the younger ones a bit of bread and dripping for their tea. ‘I thought we had some sausages?’
‘Ma left them on the table while she went out to hang a towel on the line,’ Kathy said. ‘She only left the door open a moment and next door’s dog swiped the lot…’
‘That damned dog,’ her younger brother said and wiped his snotty nose on the back of his sleeve. ‘I’m hungry, our Marion, and I don’t like dripping…’
‘Nor don’t I…’ chimed in five-year-old Milly.
‘Well, you will bloody well have to put up with it,’ Robbie said and glared at no one in particular. ‘I bought them sausages wiv me last shillin’ and I was lookin’ forward to havin’ one fer me tea wiv a bit of mash…’
‘I bought a tin of corned beef in my lunch break,’ Marion said, sensing a row brewing. It had been meant for the following day, but she would have to find something else for that if she could scrape up enough from Ma’s change pot. ‘Kathy, help me do the spuds and, Robbie, you and Dickon can cut the corned beef – thin slices and no pinching a bit or there won’t be enough to go round…’
‘Cor, I love corned beef,’ her elder brother grinned at her. Robbie was a good lad. His work down the wood yard on the docks brought in nine and sixpence a week, which was an excellent wage for a lad not quite sixteen years old. He spent every penny of it on food for the family, leaving Marion to cover everything else their father’s meagre wage did not supply. Mr Kaye worked away on the ships and came home for a couple of nights every few weeks. He gave his wife a third of whatever he’d earned to keep his family while he was gone and spent the rest on drink and fancy women. At least that was what Ma had told her eldest daughter.
‘That devil ruined me health and me life,’ she’d once told the then fifteen-year-old Marion when feeling so ill she thought herself about to die some two years previously. ‘I’m no use to you kids, so you’ll have to be mother, lass – but don’t let that devil near yer or you will end up like me…’
Even at that tender age, Marion hadn’t needed to be told what her mother meant. In a house with walls so thin that every sound could be heard, she’d listened to her mother’s cries for some peace when her father was at home.
‘Sure, you’re an unfeelin’ woman, Kathleen,’ Bill Kaye had accused his wife. ‘I wonder why I married yer – but the red hair had me fooled. I thought there was some fire in yer, but yer a milksop. If yer won’t do yer duty, yer can’t blame me if I go astray…’
Bill Kaye had at that time worked on the docks as a ship’s carpenter, but he’d signed on to sail with a merchant ship that traded at various ports in Europe and in Britain and his work now kept him away from his home and his wife’s bed. He took out his anger on all of them by giving his wife a clout whenever he felt like it, and his children stayed clear or caught his fist on the side of the ear if they got in his way.
Marion’s eldest brother Dan had joined the merchant navy as soon as he was sixteen, lying about his age because he looked older. He’d been home only twice since and both times given his family presents and ten pounds, which he’d pushed into Marion’s hand.
‘You’re the only one in this family with any sense,’ Dan had told her. ‘Take care of them, Marion, and I’ll help yer as much as I can…’
‘You’re a good brother, Dan,’ Marion had replied. She would have hugged him but knew Dan couldn’t stand to be touched. She wasn’t sure why then, except that her father had gone after one of the other dockers once and hammered him with his fists until the man couldn’t stand. After Dan left home, Marion’s mother had hinted that one of the dockers had physically abused him in a way that was shameful. He’d come home crying as a lad of ten years and his father had stormed off in a rage to deliver punishment to the man that had abused him. Bill Kaye had been arrested by the police but let off with a warning after they discovered what his victim had done to the young boy. One of the police officers said he didn’t blame him and he’d have done the same in his shoes. Dan had said it was the only time his father had ever done anything for him, adding that it still didn’t make him a decent father. Marion hadn’t understood as a child, but she did now and she felt sympathy for her brother’s hurt and humiliation.
‘I wish you’d come home, Dan,’ Marion had told him when he’d given her money from his wages. ‘It would be easier if you were here with us…’
‘Nah, I’d knock Pa’s ’ead orf or bleedin’ try,’ Dan said angrily. ‘I can’t stand the way he treats our ma, Marion. It makes me savage because she just lets him walk all over her as if she’s a doormat…’
